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Author
Topic: ick (Read 2712 times)

I love Sunday mornings. My little girls and husband are still asleep and I get a few moments. Has anybody else out there had a complete allergy meltdown since testing positive? I've found my allergies are ten times worse since becoming positive ten years ago. Any thoughts?

Take this for what it is: anecdotal evidence only. Allergies and such run in my family. I have inherited all of my fathers problems with allergies...but they seem worse than his. Why...dont know.But I will say that HIV might play a role, again, I dont know.However, I can say that taking claritin every day has helped. I used to get horrible sinus infections and now I do not. I used Flonase and Neonase for about three or four years in addition to the Claritin and have now stopped using that sort of nasal spay every day. Having the sinus infections was so unpleasant that I would do anything to stop them..........................short of surgery.

What a fascinating question. Intuitively, I could imagine that having fewer CD4 cells, or less CD4 cell variability, might dampen down the abnormal immune response that constitutes allergy. Or you could argue it the other way, that the increased global activation of the immune system in early HIV might increase the severity of allergies.

I had a mooch around, and predictably it's more complicated than that. I liked this article, abstract available on pubmed:

Which basically said that allergy is more common in HIV+ people than the general population and more common in HIV+ people than AIDS patients. It goes on to try and explain all this by measuring various markers: serum immunoglobulins, specific IgE, lymphocyte subsets, and the expression of low affinity IgE receptor (CD23) on B cells.

They found that only IgE and a personal history of allergy in the past were associated with allergy once poz. They found IgE to be higher in HIV+ people than the general population, and higher in non-AIDS compared to AIDS patients. So that fits.

I use to have Major allergy attacks. I use to sneeze about 10 times in a row and have the sniffles and itchy eyes about once a month. Since Novemeber I have not had any allergy occurances which I find quite odd. I am a bit scared because it use to be a part of me and now I kinna miss it.